Hand of the maker

[mmcirvin]

The makers of kitschy commercial religious art of the Christian persuasion should be grateful to the telescope builders of the world for so often putting the secondary mirror struts in a cross shape.

Comments

[ikkyu2.livejournal.com]

According to wikipedia, which is always suspect, reflecting telescopes were invented in the 16th c. But I suspect various types of aberration in the lens of the human eye could account for as much of this as you wanted to attribute to it.

Coincidentally, yesterday I was just reading about tunable wearable optics (http://www.cvs.rochester.edu/williamslab/r_contacts.html) for correcting higher-order aberrations of the lens. Interesting stuff.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

As far as I know, Isaac Newton invented the reflector sometime in the 17th. Most modern reflectors are some descendant or other of the Cassegrain, which was actually invented not much later.

[darius.livejournal.com]

I've wondered why the classical Greeks didn't invent it -- didn't they have the math, and the basic idea that light goes in straight lines and reflects at equal angles? Though that'd still leave you without a lens for the eyepiece.

[tau-iota-mu-c.livejournal.com]

Being able to grind a mirror to 1/16th of a wavelength is not easy. And the technique is *far* from obvious.

And besides, the greeks couldn't even get gravity right. Light things fall slower than heavy things, ptui spit!